The Reading Room Archive: Vol. 2

Sit back, relax, enjoy some brief tidbits of Masonic information.

(Whenever possible, credit is given to the source or sources of these materials.  Should you recognize anything which could be better attributed, please notify the webmaster!  Note also that the webmaster, and most especially Aurora Lodge 156, do not certify the accuracy of these items.  They are here for the inquiring mind to partake and enjoy, not as absolute truths.)
 

Selections from "Did You Know"   April, 1999
   Submitted by WB Wayne Carter,
   Source: DID YOU KNOW, Published by Missouri Masonic Lodge of Research, 1965
 

DID YOU KNOW?

Charles Warren Nash was born on a farm near Demant Illinois.  His parents split up when he was six.  As a ward of the County Court he was bound out to a farmer.  The farmer was a harsh taskmaster, altogether making  life miserable for the boy.  At the age of twelve he walked away and obtained another job.  He was offered a job in the 1890's as a blacksmith in the Flint Road Cart Company.  Through his inventions and work habits he became the President of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company in 1901.  He became a mason in 1899. But the real story is that he became the President of Buick, then General Motors (which was Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and GMC truck).  He was famous for his Nash Car Company and lastly the Nash-Kelvinator (the forerunner of AMC Motor Corp).
    Condensed from The Long Road to Kenosha, The Philalethes, Feb 1999



Inaugural bibles are furnished by the U.S. President-Elect, but George Washington did not bring one.  Aides ran across the street from the Inaugural site in New York City and borrowed the altar Bible from St. John's Lodge No. 1 (then No. 2) for the ceremony.


Pope Pius IX (Giuseppe Maria Ferrero Mastai Ferretti) joined Freemasonry in Santiago, Chile, in 1832, while a young priest.  He was the secretary of the Papal Nuncio at the time.


Declared a woman by Royal Decree!  King Louis XVI of France ordereed "Chevalier D'eon," a French political adventurer and member of a London lodge, to wear woman's clothing for the rest of "his" life.


Since New Hampshire became a state in 1785, up to 1965, forty of the sixty-nine governors have been freemasons.  Five of them became Grand Masters.


FOUR SUCCESSIVE PRESIDENTS, MEMBERS OF THE SAME LODGE.
An Ex-President, a President, and two future Argentine Presidents knelt together at the alter of Union Del Plata Lodge.  The were General JJ Urquiza (1854-60), Santiago Derqui (1860-62), General Bartolome Mitre (1862-68), and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1868-74).
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